Aksel Airo, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Aksel Airo

Finish Army general

Date of Birth: 14-Feb-1898

Place of Birth: Turku, South-Western Finland Regional State Administrative Agency, Finland

Date of Death: 09-May-1985

Profession: military personnel, politician

Nationality: Finland

Zodiac Sign: Aquarius


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About Aksel Airo

  • Aksel Fredrik Airo (14 February 1898 – 9 May 1985) was a Finnish lieutenant general and main strategic planner during the Winter War and the Continuation War.
  • He was the virtual second-in-command of the Finnish army under Field Marshal C.G.E.
  • Mannerheim. He was born in Turku.
  • As a young man he became a supporter of Finnish independence.
  • His father changed the original, Swedish, family name Johansson to Airo (lit.
  • "oar"). During the Civil War in Finland (1918), Airo served in the artillery on the White side, taking part in battles near Viipuri.
  • At the end of the war he was a lieutenant.
  • Afterwards he was trained as an officer in Lappeenranta artillery school and was sponsored to the French military academy, École militaire in St.-Cyr in 1920.
  • In 1921 he was accepted into École SupĂ©rieure de Guerre, the French officer training academy, from which he graduated as a captain in 1923, at the age of 27.
  • Mannerheim invited him to join Finland's Defense Council as a secretary. Airo rose swiftly in rank, mainly because newly independent Finland needed suitable officers for the fledgling army.
  • He had, however, some professional challenges because he was neither a Germany-trained Jaeger officer, nor one of the officers trained in the Tsar's army during Russian rule.
  • Still, by 1930 he had become a colonel. In the beginning of the Winter War, Mannerheim appointed Airo as Quartermaster-General, and he was promoted to major general, and two years later to lieutenant general.
  • On November 18, 1944, Marshal Mannerheim made him a Knight of the Mannerheim Cross in Order of the Cross of Liberty. Airo was in the Mikkeli headquarters during the war and rarely went to the field.
  • He was responsible for operational planning and the presentation of operations, or, as he allegedly said, "The Marshal leads the war, but I lead the battles".
  • They had many differences in opinion but still managed to work well together. After the Continuation War, the now Communist-dominated Valpo (the Finnish State Police) arrested him for his alleged involvement in the so-called Weapons Cache Case.
  • He was imprisoned from 1945 to 1948 without being sentenced, until president Juho Kusti Paasikivi released him.
  • He said little about the affair afterwards and earned the moniker "the silent general".
  • The President relieved him of his duties with special permission to wear a military uniform. In his later life Airo was a member of the parliament for the National Coalition Party and a presidential elector.
  • Unlike many of his contemporaries, he never wrote memoirs about his war experiences.
  • In 1982 President Mauno Koivisto awarded Airo with the Grand Cross of the Finnish Order of the White Rose with swords, which was a very rare honour in Finland.
  • He died in 1985 at his home farm in Heinola.

Read more at Wikipedia

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